


Carnal Apple, Woman Incarnate

by Catheryne



Series: Carnal Apple [1]
Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 03:36:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12160743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catheryne/pseuds/Catheryne
Summary: Post 2.14. They would all burn for their unhealthy obsessions.





	Carnal Apple, Woman Incarnate

**Part 1**

"I care."

She was so far gone, and so was he.

But she was eighteen and had every right to lose herself the way she so apparently did.

"Whatever you want to do to yourself," she had pleaded. "Don't do this to me."

She had thrown it to the harsh wind on the rooftop, and he watched the crack in his nephew's façade. Chuck looked down at the girl who was bundled in the shapeless gray coat, then reached for her hand. The boy wavered at his feet. The ledge threatened to fall away from under the soles of his shoes. The girl caught her breath, reaching up further.

They would destroy each other.

For a split second he wanted to stride in and pull her away, just so she did not have to witness the fall, just so she would not see Chuck's head bashed in, the gray matter splattered on the cement below.

Chuck reached for her outstretched hand. The moment his feet touched the ground Chuck collapsed into her arms like a broken doll, his face buried in the crook of her neck, into the thick gray wool, lost for a long moment like he himself wanted to be lost.

"Please," he heard the telltale whisper.

Fuck, the plea, the longing, would destroy him if he let it. Self-destruction. This was what this was. He knew her the moment she turned around on that bar stool when she went to him.

And then it was Chuck, muffled, unrecognizable. "I'm sorry," the boy said.

When he first met her he supposed she had an unrequited obsession, and it was a fair game all in all.

In any court of law, he would always have that defense. She had gone to him, not the other way around. He grasped the knowledge close to his chest, under his hand, ready to put the fact in play.

Her voice, soft like it was the night he saw her, when she pleaded with him with broken eyes and urgent hands clutching at his coat. "It's okay."

Leave it to Jack Bass to form an unhealthy obsession in his head. Green fingers curled around his throat.

The sight seared through his brain like nights on a blue concoction he tried once in Eastern Europe. He'd almost burned off his retinas the moment he looked up at the sun.

She was a disaster waiting to happen. Chuck, in his state, would eat her alive.

He was a disaster that had already started destroying himself. If he stayed around, waited to a moment to take from Chuck—any and all he could—she would eat him alive. It was in the way she looked at him, helpless and determined, when she mistakenly sought his help in bringing Chuck back. It was the way her eyes never seemed to look up at him even at her height. Always she had a way of making him feel inferior. When he saw the flicker of disgust in her eyes, he felt the low stirring in his belly that threaded to his groin.

It was the fucking way she blinked back tears when he told her—the very moment the lights of New York City exploded in a thousand shapes and colors outside the glass windows—where the boy was, what he was doing, who he was doing it with. And she had responded with a relieved, "At least he's alive."

"Buried in a cocktail of methamphetamine and coke and more women than you can possibly count in your fingers, Miss Waldorf," he told her clear as day. He had regarded her, from the perfectly coiffed hair to the polished twelve hundred dollar shoes. "What could you possibly want with him?"

She had glared at him like the very action would send him burning straight to hell.

And it sent him burning.

He moved forward, pressed himself against her hip. On the barstool that she sat, there was no mistaking the pressure on her upper thigh. She stiffened, pulled away. He reached for the glass of scotch that sat on the bar and threw it back in one gulp.

"Just help me find him," she said, cold, authoritative, unlike any of soft, yielding, gorgeous bitches that were so eager to grind themselves on him. Despite the cool exterior he supposed, if he buried himself inside her, she would be so searing hot he could fall off and he would rend his throat in pain and pleasure threaded into one.

Chuck, apparently, like Jack's brother himself, the achiever Bart Bass himself, had their top pick of bitches in the city.

He had been so far gone with the girl who seemed obsessed with his nephew that he carted off the boy from his addled state in Bangkok to an addled state in New York.

"Satisfied?" he murmured into her ear as she helped Chuck stagger into the hotel.

"You couldn't even sober him up. That was a long flight." She looked at him scathingly, and he could tell she remembered the way he ground into her, fully clothed, against the bathroom sink.

"I'll get him for you," he told her. "But nothing's free. You have to know that." His hot gaze focused on the white gold clinging around her wrist. If his tongue could be the charms hanging off that chain, he would lick his way to her veins.

She had fed on cheesecake and champagne in a mock celebratory blowout, then stumbled towards the bathroom. And he had had just enough of the Bass men's favorite brew that he followed her in concern, and saw the distasteful sight of the pretty girl throwing up the mush contents of her stomach. His lips curled in disgust.

"Wash your mouth."

She did, then looked up at her reflection in the mirror, let out a sob. She turned to him, "Bring him back."

Her words were slurred, just a little, and even if she was obsessed with his nephew, he had a little compassion left. He reached his hand for hers. He waited, but she would not put her hand in his. Chuck did leave her high and dry, did he not? He wondered how many of them he would meet in Manhattan.

He walked forward, a little unsteady on his feet. She leaned back against the tile wall and closed her eyes.

"You've got to move on. He's a problematic little boy," he advised her. Really, it was an honest advice. That much he had cared.

And it sent her reeling. She pushed at his shoulder and leaned over the sink. This time when she heaved it was dry. Her stomach emptied, alcohol running through her system, he caught her under her elbows when she almost fell.

He pressed against her hip, ground himself against her. Her bleary eyes opened wide and met his on the mirror. "Stop."

"It's alright," he slurred. "Just one minute." He pushed against her, rubbed against the material of her dress. She bent over the sink and threw up.

It was the fastest he had ever come, the most humiliated he had become in all his adult life.

She was a fucking disaster when she pulled away from him. "You're disgusting," she choked under her breath.

She wasn't just going to kill Chuck. She would kill him too. And he was Jack Bass, not that she cared.

Jack watched from under hooded eyes when she pulled his nephew to the steps and assisted on the way down. Chuck's arm wrapped tightly around her waist in an effort to keep the two of them from stumbling down.

"Blair," he said, needing to see her look at him, wanting to know what she wanted. She got Chuck like she asked.

She barely spent him a glance. Instead, she reached up and brushed Chuck's hair off his forehead, and wrapped an arm around his nephew's shoulders as Chuck leaned against her when they entered the elevator. "Not now, Jack. Chuck needs to rest."

He settled in the corner of the elevator, watched the interaction darkly. Slowly, he drew out his cigarette case from his pocket and snapped it open. He picked out one stick and held it between his fingers.

"Stop smoking in front of us. Do it when you're alone," she stated, cold, authoritative, the way she sounded on New Year.

Jack's nostrils flared as he quietly reached for the case and put the stick back inside.

"Of course," he drawled. "Anything for you."

And he was pleased by the shiver that passed through her body. That, at least, he could do.

 

 

Part 2

"Rise and shine, Bass," came the gentle, feminine voice.

He dreamt that voice, ever since New Year when the world sky exploded around them and he had grabbed her hand, and tugged at it, hovered it right there above his pulsing hardness, and he taunted her with the knowledge she would never have without him. She had met his teases with a glare, and if possible he felt his body respond even more furiously. He dreamed of her, even while Chuck snored beside him in first class, knocked flat out unconscious and he snapped a picture with his phone, sent it back to girl.

Pathetic little tramp, thinking waiting around for Bass would yield anything. He waited for his father to die to get a measly fourteen year old car while his brother got their little house, and turned brick and mortar to New York skyscrapers within a decade.

His nephew probably felt the sharp, searing pain in the backs of his eyes. Chuck opened his eyes into mere slits.

There she was, leaning over Chuck, with a serene smile on her face. Chuck almost smiled until he met his eyes over her shoulder. Chuck cleared his throat. At this angle it almost seemed like Jack was pushing up into her from behind. His lips curved, because that too was a visitor in the night, when he was lulling himself to sleep. One week and he was itching to bury himself deep inside her. So he stood so close his jacket almost kissed the back of her skirt.

Jack broke into an easy smile, welcoming even. He stepped forward and squeezed in next to Blair, who drew back as if stung. "Welcome to the land of the living," Jack said. "I want you back on your feet." Jack turned, his gaze sliding to Blair who now settled into a seat by his bed. "Show people what a good example I can be."

Vaguely, he remembered arriving at school after a message from the headmistress. She had been there, poised, composed like no eighteen year old girl was allowed to be, fighting her damndest, lawyering Chuck's way to freedom, and boy that he was, screwed it up for both of them. And after that, even as he pushed her away with women barely fit to clean her shoes, she had stayed.

Push her, he urged in his head. Push her so hard, so fast, she would come reeling to his bed.

Yet instead, she saved his life with a plea for him to think of her, to take care of her, to save her too. All that wrapped up in five short words. "Don't do this to me," she pleaded.

And for the life of him, he didn't—not to the girl who was not even his girlfriend, the girl he couldn't even claim to love, the girl he had abandoned twice now, pushed away countless times after that.

Of course he listened. She had been the one talking.

"What do you say, Blair?" Jack asked, his voice dropping low. "Join the Bass men for breakfast. You love your breakfast, don't you?" She loved it enough to stumble out of bed in the morning and push a finger down her throat, make herself sick kneeling on his backroom floor as she emptied her stomach.

Jack met Chuck's darkening gaze. Blair grabbed Chuck's hand. Her voice was urgent when she urged, "Let's get out of here, Chuck. I want to leave New York."

She refused to meet his eyes. Jack leaned back against the wall. "Leaving New York without breakfast?" he emphasized.

"I'll think about it," she allowed.

"Nothing to think about. You can't refuse that mug," Jack said offhandedly, nodding towards Chuck. He challenged his nephew. "You can't make her eat, can you?" Chuck's eyes narrowed. "Make her eat so much she's be so full she'd want to throw up."

Blair stiffened, straightened her posture. She helped him sit up, stood when he slid his legs off the bed to put on his shoes. "I want to leave. Now," she snipped.

"Your college admission results are back next week," he reminded her. Jack watched as slowly, Chuck regained sobriety at the demands of holding a conversation with Blair. His nephew did caring well. He wondered where he learned. It certainly wasn't from Bart.

She fisted her hand on her thigh, and he imagined how it would feel if she fisted her hand around him. He had pressed that fist against him when he urged her openmouthed against her ear, when he begged her to hold him, even over his pants, and kept her hand so tightly closed he had to make do with pushing himself against her wrist, her knuckles, so forcefully he swore he sprained her.

"I don't care. Let's just get away."

How could she plead with her voice at the boy while offering a night away in her arms, when he himself trekked half the world to do her a favor and earned nothing but disdain in return?

"Chuck, let's go so you don't have to deal with any of this," she offered.

"I can take it," Chuck replied proudly.

Bart's little boy never really did learn from his own mistakes. Stood to reason. When Chuck fell hard as a child, his father merely fired the one in charge. And then someone else set Chuck right to do the same thing again.

Blair grasped his hand. "If you won't do it for you, do it for me," she finally said.

Jack straightened, prepared it seemed. Chuck Bass was smart even when his brain was friend and near addled as he came down from his high. His nephew's gaze met his over the top of her head. But it was to her that he whispered, "What wrong?"

She shook her head. And the answer she provided was enough to make even his bile rise. "You're here now. Nothing can be wrong." Her eyes shone, the way they never did when she glanced at him with a curl to her lips. "Not when we're together."

Apparently, the girl was capable of speaking like that. And he'd gone through the hell of the last week for nothing.

"Just two days," she requested, running her hand on Chuck's shirt. Her fingers were splayed, her palm rested above his heart.

And she couldn't bother to grasp him when he was willing to do all the work.

He'd take her for two days. She'd never forget a second of those hundred seventy two thousand eight hundred. She just had to open her hand when he said, needed to look at him once the way she'd been looking at Chuck, plead, just once, plead with him like she pleaded with his nephew.

She could be so much more than this little girl chasing after a boy bent of self-destruction.

"Not a very good idea," he finally said. "Your father's will is being read today. Don't you want to know how much trouble my brother left you?"

He watched, eagerly imbibing the way his nephew looked from him, to the girl at his side. Jack wouldn't even have needed a split second to make that decision. Finally, Chuck settled his eyes on the girl. He sighed heavily, and Jack suspected it was only because the boy knew how much he had to make up for.

"We'll go to Vermont."

"Bad decision," Jack cut in. He crossed his legs over his ankles as he leaned back against the wall with his arms across his chest. "Traveling across the state? She's been up the whole night watching you. Hasn't even been to the bathroom at all." He fixed his gaze on his nephew. "You can't really be that selfish."

"The question is, Jack, what the hell were you doing watching her the whole night?"

The girl's eyes widened, then flew to Jack's. She shook her head, turning pleading eyes to him now. Finally. He never thought he'd see her beg. Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. For some reason, she looked more beautiful now than she did any other time he conjured her in his head these past few nights.

"Chuck, it was nothing," she managed. "We were—talking about you." Again, the shudder. God, he loved the way she shuddered. When she shuddered, she told him she was thinking of him. The goosebumps were evident on her arms and he wanted so much to run his stubble against the soft tiny hair on her arms. He was so eager to show her just how much they contrasted.

Chuck's defensive pose softened at her lie. He just got harder even more. Her smirked at the way her tongue darted out to lick her lips, in her clear discomfort at making up the story. Chuck rose from the bed and walked over to his closet to pick out clothes.

When Chuck was out of earshot, Jack did not take his eyes off her. Hastily, she stood up and straightened her dress. "You know what you just did, right?" She glared at him. "There's no turning back now, Blair. That was your chance. You threw it away."

"He doesn't need to know how filthy you are," she spat back in a harsh whisper. "He's got enough problems. I can take care of you myself."

Jack strolled towards her, infuriating her he was sure. He moved like he was walking in the park, undisturbed, unhurried—two things she definitely was not. "Don't kid yourself. You think you're sparing him but you're just trying to spare yourself the explanation." He leaned closer, speaking into her ear, his hot breath sending a shiver through her. "Any minute now this will all blow up in your face." Any day now, so would he. And he would relish the minutes to that day, when he saw himself clinging to those full red lips.

He made his way across the threshold of the bedroom.

When the door to the bathroom opened, Chuck walked out buttoning his shirt. Jack watched under hooded eyes when the little girl pushed at the boy's hand and then threw her arms around his neck, pressing the length of her body fully against Chuck's. His nephew met the girl's lips with fervor in his own.

Chuck must have noticed him watching, because he lifted his head from Blair's. The girl looked back at him with her lipstick smeared over her lips, her mouth bruised with kisses. Her lips curved. Even now it irked him that she still seemed to look down at him despite their angle. His own hands fisted to his side. He itched to reach for her hair and jerk it down, so she would be forced to look up at him, even once. When he wrapped her hair around his fingers, she would forever be looking up at him.

"Vermont?" bubbled her voice.

She kicked at the door and the door slammed shut on his face. "Fuck her," he muttered.

Over, and over, and over.

 

 

**Part 3**

The smoke curled like little gray come hithers as he blew the thin stream out of his pursed lips. Jack leaned against the column right by the stairs, waiting. It must have been forever, but it was still centuries too short than what she deserved. The boy's door swung open and she stepped out into the corridor. Her gray coat hung on her arm. When she turned and spotted him, she stopped, frowned, then raised her head and stalked forward.

He was unmissable. He made sure of it.

"Wore him out?" he drawled out in question. He saw her jaw twitch, like she was forcing herself not to respond, even though she wanted to. The girl kept her focus on the steps. "Not hard to do. He hasn't exactly been living a healthy life."

She ignored him and passed right by him to make her way down the stairs. He grabbed her arm and whispered, "Still wet?" If it were him inside her just moments ago, she would be dripping still. Her throat worked. He wondered how it would taste if he dipped the tip of his tongue in the hollow of her throat. He bet it would taste like a heady combination of salt and Blair. It was so obvious with the way her chignon was now loose, and the bruised rawness of her lips, that she had rolled out of his nephew's bed and straight out of the room.

Blair pulled her arm out of his grasp. "Leave me alone, Jack, or I'll swear—"

His lips trembled with humor. "You'll tell?" he challenged. "Can you tell, Blair?" Would she tell the little boy still unstable enough he would want try to fling himself off a roof? "Because I've got nothing to lose."

Her eyes drifted to where he now pressed himself against her. She twisted her hips in an effort to move away. He hissed at the action as it chaffed him. Fully clothed, she could make him come the way she had twice before.

"Should I tell him what a mess we made against the bathroom sink on New Year's?" he taunted. "Both of us?" When she spewed the contents of her stomach and in her drunken confessions blamed it all on Chuck? That moment—priceless enough to capture on his phone. He played it at night, her sob so loud it almost hid—but not completey—the noise she made when she retched. His gasps were audible on the record too. Made him stiff to recognize himself on the record—the noises he made jerking off while humping dryly against her hip. "You never even complained." A token exclamation of disgust afterwards. Didn't count in his books when the complaint happened after his pants have been ruined.

He took her hand and hovered it over him. He should get more this time. "Wrap your hand around me."

She drew away. "Let me go."

"So simple, Blair. You just need to squeeze. Pull." Just those. He didn't intend to come in her mouth for a few more days. When you're on vacation you tend to draw out the highlights. Her eyes narrowed at him. He couldn't believe he would need to teach her this, couldn't believe his nephew could not teach the girl something so essential. Her eyes drifted down to the straining bump on his pants. Her fist loosened, and finally, she pressed her palm over him. His eyes almost rolled back in his head. "That's right," he mumbled.

How fitting that the boy was only just a few feet away.

"Make it good and I won't tell." He imagined it was her closing on him, drawing him deep into her wet recesses, fantasized he was doing it now, when she was fresh from the boy's bed and had to be so very slick.

And then she was gripping him like a vise, her fingers buried and crushing him. And he yelped. He gritted his teeth and pulled her hand away from him. He pushed her away and she stumbled, teetering wildly enough he expected she would fall.

One of these days she would fall.

Now he caught her by the waist, pulled her against his body. She caught her balance when she settled down against him, the crack of her ass naturally draping her over him, sheltering and warming the abused fellow she almost tore off.

"What the hell."

She started, shot right up and whirled around. He lazily turned his head to look at the boy as he walked out towards them. Chuck looked like hell on two feet after the hash and the booze nearly did him in. But he appeared freshly bathed and Jack thought he was stupid. Blair Waldorf had been on him. You didn't wash that away until you had to.

But Chuck's eyes were on the girl. "What are you doing?" he demanded. Even with the authority creeping onto his voice, the boy still sounded like what he really was—a vulnerable little boy.

"If I may," Jack offered.

Chuck set his jaw. "Blair," he prompted, sounding betrayed, having jumped to his own conclusion even while waiting for an explanation.

Damn, Jack adored how Chuck was so predictable. Just like Bart. It made everything so much easier. "Just tell him," he added. "He looks like he'd be understanding."

The tortured look she threw him made the muscle in his chest cavity clench, then pump sluggishly. Earlier it made him hard. Now the more frequently he did it, the more unpleasant the sensations it gave. She made him imagine, with those wet, searching eyes, her body twisted on the pavement, more successful in her effort than his nephew.

She was smart and strong, and he wondered if that was possible if he pushed her enough.

He'd give her what she wanted. He wouldn't tell.

"It isn't any of your business, Chuck," he told his nephew.

It earned the desired effect. Chuck bared his teeth, then glared at the girl. Tonight she would be so broken, spinning headlong into a private disaster that he just had to be there for. Her shoulders fell, the air of authority and the haughtiness that awakened his senses from when he first saw her were gone. In their place, that wounded shock that had sent her emptying herself over the sink. He missed that injured girl. He melted for that girl.

"You don't need to know everything," he continued.

She grasped at the railing like she had grasped him. Violent and punishing that her fingernails were white.

Chuck looked at his uncle, and Jack did not hide. He was a man, not a boy who cowered on the other side of the world because he was sad. Chuck was always Bart's son first and foremost, and he was sure the boy recognized what Jack did not bother to cover up. And assumed the one thing he predicted he would.

"I can't tell you. I care about you too much," she managed weakly.

What would it do to Chuck, he wondered, if he knew the girl had ripped her insides apart, and continued to do so, because of him? But that was another piece of knowledge to spill another day.

She moved forward, in her fully-covered glory, a vision in black and white and a shade of gray. The girl placed a hand on the boy's arm. The boy flinched at her touch. She winced like that was physical pain.

"Don't touch me," the boy growled.

She lowered her hand.

"Get the hell out of here."

She gathered herself, like a deposed queen. She raised her head and floated down the stairs. It looked too good to miss. He found himself following closely behind.

"Jack." He turned his head to find his nephew regard him like a prey. He stopped in his tracks and turned to face the boy. "What did you do?"

Just how far did one take deception? He took his cue from the greatest legends of all time.

You took as far, as deep, as high as you possibly can.

"She was lonely. You were away. I was sympathetic." He stepped forward, braving any violence that could erupt from a boy barely schooled in manhood. "For what it's worth, I didn't know until she said your name."

When, he left to the boy's imagination. He seemed to have such an active one it was delightful to play with.

"She'd never touch you," Chuck whispered, with just a tinge of threat coloring his voice.

His smirk said everything he would not. "You think so?"

"You don't understand us," Chuck dismissed.

Subtly, gently, he inquired, "Help me understand. How many women did you sleep during your sojourn in the tropics?"

"She loves me," was the boy's quiet, end-all, be-all defense.

Jack nodded. He'd seen it in her attempt to retrieve him, in her childish insistence that he not know. Hell, he'd done enough to warrant worse punishment than her harsh words. But Chuck was so wrong. He understood them so well. "So she does."

That was something he could ponder.

Knowing the boy, he would grab the nearest bottle until he was so senseless he wouldn't create scenarios in his head of exactly when Jack found out for sure that the girl loved him. Jack was almost sorry he would miss the delicious, torturous events that the boy was sure to concoct.

Like possibly, her thinking of Chuck the whole time Jack buried himself inside her, crying out I love you to the boy while his uncle pumped her full of himself.

He wondered how it was possible that his pants hadn't popped at the seams.

Talking this through, inventing possibilities, would be too much strain, so he left before the boy say more.

The skyline hotel bar was sacred to him. As a much younger man, he had spent nights of debauchery in its warm embrace. While his brother ran his billion-dollar companies and enjoyed the adulation of many, the poor neglected sibling that he was spent lonesome birthdays squandering Bart's annual cash gift on booze and women. And the memories of warm, yielding bodies that climaxed at the sound of his last name were too precious. So when she called, the girl he had thought had this unrequited obsession for the boy, he asked to meet her there.

And the New York sky was vibrant, the hotel bar nearly empty. New Yorkers tended to flock like sheep waiting for a huge lit ball to drop. They were almost alone, and he dry humped against her thigh while she drunkenly fought to expel the contents of her stomach.

There were few things in life he considered sacred. That bathroom was sacred to him.

"Why am I not surprised to see you here?" He leaned against the bar as he regarded her shivering form. The bar was warm; her thick gray coat was discarded on the seat next to her like a dead animal hung to dry, a not so subtle message that she would entertain no one sitting next to her. He ignored the message and picked up the coat, put it two seats down and climbed onto the stool beside her himself.

Her hair, earlier in a messy chignon, now fell in abandon around her shoulders.

"I know what you're doing, Jack. It's not going to work."

His lips curved, because there were no words harsh enough to take away the stirring he felt whenever words came out of her mouth. "Is that why you're here?"

"The last time I checked," she said, looking down at the olive at the bottom of her clear glass, "you didn't own this bar. You don't own anything."

"And somehow," he returned, "that's worse than inheriting everything after doing nothing of consequence."

She turned her cold gaze at him, "Chuck earned every last part of his father's money. He earned it with every parent-teacher conference Bart didn't attend, every birthday Bart forgot to enter into his Blackberry, every accomplishment Chuck had that didn't get him a pat on the back. He earned everything Bart left."

"Chuck has a bar of his own," Jack reminded her. It was no coincidence that brought her here. She would admit it if that was the last thing he did. "Chuck has a bar and you walk into this one." Fricking Casablanca and the crap he was forced to watch when his cable fritzed. "Subconscious tendencies bring you back?"

"Don't flatter yourself," she snapped. The bartender placed another glass of her drink in front of her. "I needed a place where Chuck won't find me." Pointedly, she told him, "I needed to be alone."

"If you want to be alone, drink at home," he advised. He gave his drink order, and the bartender placed the small glass in front of him and poured him a shot of whiskey. "Make it a triple."

He took a sip and hissed at the strong brew. It reminded him of the time Bart experimented, and the hell of having a brother nearly twenty years older, and gave him a shot of rubbing alcohol.

"He thinks you cheated on him." She gave him a cold look. "With me."

"I wonder why," she gritted, her voice taking on a hard edge.

He assessed her. She was seated with her back straight, but judging from the line of unwashed glasses that looked just like hers, she had had four cocktails. "It doesn't matter why. He doesn't trust you. He threw you out."

On New Year's eve, it took far less to send her running.

"It was far too easy to make him believe you cheated." His voice dropped. "Are you a cheater, Blair?"

And then she was down to one olive, rolling so wet and lonely at the bottom of the glass. She picked up a toothpick and tried to spear it, but she could not quite find the middle and the olive kept rolling away. "Let me help you," came his voice, gentle and he had no idea where the gentleness came from. Jack reached for the glass picked up the olive between his fingers, held it up to her. "Here," he said, holding it up to her lips.

Blair pursed her lips. He shrugged and popped the olive into his mouth.

"You probably are," he concluded. "Only cheaters could be as patient as you are. Because they know they have a lot to make up for." She glared at him. And Blair Waldorf only got that much more interesting. "I'm right. You've cheated. It never goes away, Blair."

"We're past that. We were broken up." The bartender placed another cocktail in front of her, and she cupped it graciously, raised it to her lips. Jack marveled at the smooth supply.

"He doesn't trust you."

And finally, she hopped off the stool. Her knees buckled. The girl didn't drink often, because she didn't even know that six glasses would render her barely able to stand. He caught her under her arms and kept her up. She pushed at his chest, and he let her waver at her feet.

"Let me help you," he repeated.

So she nodded and leaned against him. His arms wrapped around her waist. They barely made it to the bathroom before she clasped her hand to her mouth to keep the vomit from spilling. Then, he placed her in front of the bathroom sink, standing behind her, pressing into her back. She raised teary eyes to view her reflection, and he met her eyes over her shoulder.

Jack gathered her hair in his hand. It would be so easy to wrap her hair around his fingers now, so easy to jerk her head back. But she was crying, and the tears made her crazier than anything he'd seen from her before. She was limp on her feet and his body pressing her against the marble was the only thing keeping her up.

He leaned forward and sniffed her hair, drew lower and brushed his stubble against the soft skin of her neck. Her head fell back, and the muscle in his chest cavity soared in triumph. His lips parted and he pressed his open mouth against her skin.

His tongue darted out to taste if there was really salt on her skin. Jack's eyes lifted to look at their reflection, because they were bound to look beautiful wrapped up like this. It would be the first time she ever looked up to him.

Her eyes were closed, her lips half-parted. Even drunk out of her mind unconscious she didn't snore. But even he drew the line somewhere. He had to stop. One more. One last. Another kiss, this time right in the pulse under her earlobe. He hated being saddled with women who can't hold their liquor. It was disgusting and a hassle. Jack bent and lifted her up in his arms. This time he didn't mind so much.

 

**Part 4**

"You're going to destroy me."

Jack turned his head and saw her the way he had left her leaning against the glass window. This time, her eyes were open and she stared, unseeing, at some point between here and there. He had carted her off to the town car immediately after she had sagged limply against him, and he had so hoped he would have time to take her to the privacy of his hotel suite before she woke up hissing and spitting.

But here she was, awake, and so very calm it seemed.

"You're going to destroy me," she repeated, her voice soft. "And I'm going to let you."

Her lashes were spiked with the tears that brimmed in her eyes. There was a sadness about her, like the one he saw cloaking his nephew in Bangkok, like the one that radiated from the boy on the rooftop. If he had known Chuck's melancholy was communicable, he would have pushed her on him from the first moment and rubbed her against the boy himself. Because really, there was nothing in his life he had ever seen more beautiful than Blair Waldorf in agony.

"Why?" he returned.

And he wanted to wrap his fingers around her neck, squeeze just a little until she panicked and looked at him. He was not an unattractive man. There was no reason why she kept her gaze out of focus, no reason that she would refuse to see him.

"Because you lied to him about me," she said. "And he believed you."

He drew closer to her. "I suppose it has something to do with the fact that you were just lying underneath him." His voice dropped. "Or were you on top?" If she was looking, he would know. She would not need to answer and he would see, just from the way her pupils would dilate, and he could imagine it was him pounding down into her, or his hands clutching her hips as she bounced over him.

She acted like a top, but with his nephew she folded and appeared like she was made to be bottom.

Her eyes flickered down, and now she stared at her lap. And the images he had tried so hard to conjure flew out of his head. Instead of Blair Waldorf in naked abandon, sheathed in nothing but her long brown hair, all he could see was Blair Waldorf in her somber black dress, downcast, teary.

"You're still drunk," he concluded. Jack slid over her, and she leaned back against the passenger door to her side. He was half over her, and she closed her eyes. He had wanted to do it too many times before. He dipped his head and breathed, and her scent assailed his senses. "You reek of vodka."

"Vodka doesn't smell."

But he knew just how Blair Waldorf should smell. And even the faintest trace that marred her, he recognized. "On you, I can smell vodka."

Again, she shivered. Her eyes fluttered closed and she leaned her head back against the seat. He suspected she was steadying herself, balancing the vision that sent the world whirling in her head. Her voice was broken, and she tore him apart when she asked, "Do I smell like him? Just a little, do I smell like him?"

And a drunken Blair Waldorf, he learned, had no soul.

"If I smell like him, maybe I won't take a bath tonight."

So he responded the only way he knew how, "Chuck took a shower almost immediately after. He smelled like commercial germicidal soap." If she was sober, she probably would have tore him a new one. Drunk, she just turned her head away. She hurt him; he hurt her. Like for like. A stab for a stab. What she didn't know was, when Jack Bass thrust, he twisted too.

She wasn't coming out of this alive.

He was bound to destroy her and she would let him.

She was already well on her way destroying him, and she didn't even know.

"I can give you what he won't," he offered. Looking down at her underneath him, with her eyes closed and her neck bared, he was in agony. Slowly he nuzzled his nose into the pulse point of her throat, then nipped. Beneath his lips he felt the angry sluggish pump of blood under the skin. "What do you say?"

Finally, she opened her eyes and drew back, met his eyes. He ached to bury himself inside her. His hands trailed to the hem of her skirt, very gently drawing it up to bare more of the gray leggings. "I can't."

His fingers hooked to the waist of the stocking and when he started to pull them down past her thighs, he saw the tear trickle down the corner of her eye. He sighed, leaned his forehead against her chest, and sighed. And then he drew the skirt of her dress down.

"You're killing me," he rasped. Still, his nose flared at the scent. It clung to her clothes, it hung on her skin. His lips moved to trace the scoop of her neckline. He buried his nose in the hollow of her collarbone. He bit at the bone. One of these days he would melt into her body and live inside her.

"Jack," she protested, pushing at his shoulders. Her breath stank with liquor and hunger and her eyes were so bleary they almost crossed. He released a frustrated breath, then sat up, taking his body off her. "Don't."

He scowled, because she had been lying so pliant one moment and drawing back the next. She was bitch drunk. But she was a bitch sober too. "What the hell do you want from me?"

"Tell him the truth," she pleaded.

He tested, "The truth."

"That I didn't sleep with you."

His lips curved. "If he trusted you, I wouldn't need to tell him anything."

"But he doesn't trust me." She was so so capable, and she didn't bother to deny it. Somehow, the thought of her cheating, the knowledge that there was a reason that Chuck couldn't trust her, made her so perfect for him. This girl, who looked like an angel, was as broken and sinful like anyone else. "It was a long time ago and we weren't even together. One time, with someone I loved."

One time, and Chuck would never trust her again. So was the nature and the flaw of all men Bass.

"Ex boyfriend." She nodded.

Two little boys. Only two little boys ever experienced drowning in the heaven that existed between her legs. Poor girl. She still didn't know what sex tasted like. Not really.

Soon, he thought idly, he would go spelunking. And he would find the treasure hidden deep. He doubted his nephew ever found it. When he found that treasure he would suckle on it until it ruptured in return, and washed him like it washed no one else. And he would be thirsty enough to sip and relish it.

"Then again," he told her, "if you trusted him you wouldn't be in this little predicament with me, trying to hide something you know if bound to explode."

"He didn't have anything to do with it," she said. "It was momentary insanity."

Maybe it was. He loved hearing the way she cursed him for bringing it back as she gagged in the background. It was going to be a nice gift for Chuck. For this he could probably figure out how to send an audio recording through the phone network.

"I'll tell him," he vowed, because the greatest risks rewarded the most. Bart was good for one thing—and that was financial advice. He survived gambling in the stock market from Bart's little lessons in life. "I'll tell him I haven't been inside you." When he whispered the promise, his breath warmed her ear so much the skin grew moist. Not, at least, in real life.

She gave a relieved exclamation. "What do you want?"

And he was happy she asked. It showed him she understood what it took, knew him like no one expected she would. There was always something in return.

"If he takes you back, congratulations. If he doesn't, you'll keep your promise."

The fear that crept into her eyes made her, if possible, that much more alluring. "Which one?"

He leaned close, so close his lips almost touched hers. He had no doubt she felt his breath in her mouth. "That I'll destroy you. And you'll let me."

She raised her chin and met his eyes. "If you tell him the truth, and he still doesn't want me, you can do anything you want. I wouldn't care."

And the sad thing was, because he could read her face, he was sure she was telling the truth.

He nodded, faced with a challenge he wanted to win more than anything else. "I want to fuck you so much." If he could just get inside her, he knew he would make her happy. And happiness never used to be an issue.

But Chuck was in love with her. The boy claimed so. And the boy claimed she loved him too.

And so, he added, almost tenderly, especially for her, "I'm going to love fucking you."

There was no strength, no fervor behind the words that used to sound titillating when he used them to a girl. He suspected it was the stupid way everything had to mean something. But more than that, he thought maybe it was the fact that he kept seeing her eyes. Her fantastic eyes that welled with sadness at every turn.

He should really be seeing her naked, bouncing frantically, hair in wild abandon, feel her fingernails drawing blood down his chest.

Instead he heard her ask, with her plea in her voice, if she smelled like him.

It was disgusting.

Seeking to turn it around, because he would not accept that this was the girl who would crowd his dreams, he demanded, "Seal it with a kiss." And then his hand gripped her face, and he pulled her face to his and pushed his mouth on hers, gnashing his teeth against hers, forcing her lips to part and pushing his tongue into her mouth. Inside and out, inside and out, successively until he thought he would release right then. And she tasted still like vodka and olives and nothing more.

He released her, almost snapped at her for not responding. He glowered when he heard her sob and curl into the corner of the town car. They stopped in front of her building, across the street. She opened the door. When he spotted the boy, Chuck had been leaning outside her building wall, his hands stuck under his armpits to warm them.

She raced, stumbling over her feet to reveal the alcohol still not purged from her system. Still, she pushed forward and he cursed when a passing car almost ran her over. Jack slammed out of the car and moved to follow. But then she was rushing towards the boy, grabbing him by the lapels of his coat, pressed her body against his. Jack slowly made his way to them.

She pulled the boy down and showered his face with kisses. "Chuck, you're here!"

The boy straightened, then picked up what had been half hidden by his body, placed on the wall. "I'm sorry" He handed her the bouquet of flowers.

She accepted the flowers gratefully and thanked the boy, leaned her head against his chest.

If he had known she wanted flowers, he would have had better ones delivered. Hell, he would have probably filled her room with flowers enough so that when he finally pushed inside her, she would have roses plastered to her back. Jack felt his jaw twitch, and he felt like the crown of his teeth suffered the brunt of her tension. She looked almost sober. But the deal stood.

"Ask me where Blair was on New Year's Eve." He dared, "Go on. I swear I'll tell the truth."

His nephew looked down at the girl in his arms, then said, "I don't need to know."

He saw the exact moment her face broke.

"Nothing happened," she pressed.

Harder now, Chuck's voice insisted, "I don't need to know."

Jack chuckled and met Blair's eyes. He hoped she knew how to keep her end of the bargain.

 

 

**Part 5**

 

There was something absolutely dirty in the way she was so covered up as she jogged to the small office that the boy played at working in. It was a make believe world for Chuck, and he was the best uncle in the world because he let him play. Jack sat back in his chair as Chuck leafed through fiscal quarter reports, and almost felt sorry when he would peer through the glass windows of his own office and into Chuck's, and see the boy scratching his eyebrow trying to make sense of charts and tables that Jack doubted he even learned about in school.

The way her skirts always went past her knees, the way her legs were always covered by the opaque leggings, the high collars. It sent a cold finger down his spine imagining just how very long it would take to get Blair Waldorf completely naked.

He should focus on his own part of the entire business. That was, manage to keep most of it afloat until the board could decide, or Chuck himself would, that Jack was a better man to be at the helm of the large conglomerate that his brother so successfully built from scratch.

It was the reason he came, but when the reason he stayed kept bounding out of the elevator at four o'clock every day and rushing to the room where she was barely entertained, he could not help but drop the documents and just watch.

Sometimes she was successful, and Chuck would draw the blinds. Someone should tell the facilities group that Chuck Bass' office blinds didn't quite reach the floor. He knew because sometimes he would recognize articles of clothing peering from under the bottom blade. And then he'd wonder, where did the scrap of bright red come from when she came running in all in black?

It was a ritual, and like all rituals, it was predictable and easy.

The left elevator at twelve minutes past four. He stood right in front, and when the doors parted, she almost stepped back inside.

"I have a surprise for you." He lifted the two pamphlets up. "I'm shocked you're the one coming here every day." And she had, for two weeks. The boy had been suspended from school, and every day she had come to visit. When the blinds were closed, Jack would just tell himself they studied.

And man, could a thirty-year old teach her so much more than a boy who was barely legal.

"What are you doing with that?" she hissed, pointedly ignoring his question.

His lips thinned. He could feel the tension in his mouth. "How far you've fallen, if you're the one booking weekends away." His voice dropped. "If it were me, you wouldn't have to lift a finger. I'll come to you."

"I bet you will." Blair snatched the pamphlets that came in. "Even if you're not wanted."

He grabbed her arm, and she glared at him. He loosened his grip. "You're not out of the deal. You have to pay up soon. It's earning interest."

"What are you talking about?"

And he would savor every moment he told her, because since that day with the flowers she had been so comfortable, and he missed her. "He never said he believed me," Jack informed Blair.

"Chuck and I are fine." Poor girl. Even with such a simple statement, the uncertainty crowding her voice was too much to bear. If she were his, there would never be a question. By now, she should know that. If she didn't he would make sure she knew.

Games were for little boys playing at adulthood.

Jack let go of her arm. "Why do I keep forgetting you're a kid? So naïve."

Her eyes narrowed at him. "Because you're a perverted old man trying to screw his nephew's girlfriend."

She stormed away, and he let her. He knew her every move now. He did not need to turn his head to watch, because the moment she opened the door and stumbled away, he knew exactly what she had seen. It was like a tableau he himself had sketched, painted, assembled.

She ran, and he had predicted the exact course she would take, what time she would get to her destination. Right before the doors of the elevator closed, he slipped in, and saw the exact moment Chuck flew out of his office with his pants undone, furiously pushing his shirt buttons into their holes.

Blair grabbed the handrest inside the elevator cab as she took deep breaths. And the way her back tensed as she tried to calm herself irritated him. Hard wood splintered more easily than any malleable tree.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

She radiated with such hurt he was burning at their proximity.

She turned her teary eyes at him. "Did you know?"

He placed a hand on her shoulder, fully expecting her to shake it off. When she did not, he stepped close. "Everyone knows."

"I can't believe it." She shook her head, and allowed Jack to turn her around so he could speak with her. "I should. I'm surprised that I'm surprised." This was it, the height and the depth, the very moment it was best to say the words.

He moistened his lips, his gaze falling to her parted ones as she sucked in her breath through her mouth. "You think this is about wanting to screw you?" With those words, he bared his gut. First time he did it since he showed his father a portrait he made out of loose used crayons and Bart phoned from New York City to say hello. Everything else was discarded so everyone could greet the older brother, and his drawing had been abandoned on the rickety kitchen table.

"Isn't it?" she challenged.

He stepped closer, and she felt the cold metal of the elevator biting into her back. "I can't think of anything but you. I wake up at night saying your name," he told her. And she was getting all the power and he didn't care. It was not as if she did not have it all along. "I'm fucking in love with you. Since I met you, I can't even think of anyone else," he stressed, recalling for her the difference between that dedication and Chuck Bass'.

Chuck never said I love you. Jack should know. Bart never told anyone he loved them.

And it was so natural to just mash their lips together while she grabbed the metal rail behind her. She responded for a moment, then pushed away. He breathed harshly, feeling his body respond to even the mildest of kisses. He slammed his fist against the stop button and grabbed her hips, pulling her towards him and grinding his mouth on hers, backing her up with a grunt against the button panel.

He grasped her hair and barely heard the ding, barely noticed the shift in the lighting when the doors opened. He lay his forehead on hers and tried to catch his breath.

"So it's true?"

Jack turned his head, and Blair jumped away from him. His lips curved. "I thought you didn't want to know."

"Stop it," she spat at Jack. "You keep twisting it around so people would think what you want them to think."

His eyes fell to the buttons of her prim blouse, and she was near bursting at the chest. It was a crime she kept them hidden, because the sight of her breasts right now while she was panting mad was something he would trade his share of Bass for.

"We've been caught. Why deny it?" In her ear, and only in hers, low enough that Chuck wouldn't hear, he told her, "I told you, Blair. He'd never believe you."

She jutted her chin. And asked the one thing she could ask to seal the question with the boy. "What were you doing with those girls?"

Chuck bared his teeth. "I thought we're over this. You can't keep running to someone else whenever you're pissed off at me. You did with Nate. You did it with Marcus and now you're doing the same thing with my uncle, Blair?"

He was caught off guard, completely. It wasn't because Chuck was a particularly good fighter. Instead, he had been mesmerized by the way her eyes seemed to throb in their sockets while the boy spoke. And all he wanted to do was go to her and shield her.

But she needed that—to hear the words from Chuck, to see the hatred in the boy's eyes.

And Jack found himself flying up, slamming against the marble water of the building, looking down at his nephew's mad eyes. Chuck's fist slammed into the side of his jaw, and he saw stars exploding in the backs of his eyes. And then the boy released him, and he leaned back in half collapse against the wall.

"I'm over this," Chuck finished, and the words sent an overwhelming thrill pounding inside Jack. He opened his eyes while the world spun and saw Chuck looking at the girl.

"You're over me?" she returned in disbelief.

Instead of words, the boy responded by turning his back and stalking away. Jack shook his head. Did Bart see any of this in his own son? There had been so many times when the older Bass brother would walk out with no explanation.

He saw her shatter, fold in on herself.

When Blair moved to follow, then caught herself, stood instead watching until Chuck vanished into the hidden exist door at the back of the building, Jack waited. Her hands fisted at her sides. When one hand flew up to smooth her hair, in an unconscious gesture to gather herself, he walked over and stopped right behind her.

He did not need to touch her. There was no need to press his raging hardness into the crevice of her ass. But he needed to smell her. He lowered his head, so close his breath teased the skin of her nape and sent the little hair crazily flying.

"I'm not getting over you anytime soon," he promised. And he wasn't even lying. The girl was turning into such an obsession that he needed to get a grip. Now. "Hell, I'm never getting over you," he found himself saying.

And God, she would be so soft. In his bed, he would be so malleable and pliant one moment and a vicious spitfire the next. He could take turns eating her and strangling her, and the ritual would hold for decades.

When his lips finally touched her nape, she flinched.

Fucking bitch.

She ran. And it was predictable. He took his time following her, because control was still a prize and he was already on the losing side. When he made it to the bathroom, he held himself at the door. Now wasn't the time, and if he stepped in now he would lose again the control he needed. He heard the running water turned on to hide the retching noises coming from inside.

It was moments later when she did not step outside, he could not hear the noises anymore, that he rapped on the door. "Blair, just come outside."

There was no answer. Only the running water.

He pushed the door open and saw her sitting in the corner, the front of her Puritan blouse stained with bright red drops of blood, her lips rimmed with the same. He turned and saw the fresh blood in the sink. He walked over to her, dropped to his knees and called for a car.

She held his gaze, did not speak. Jack swallowed, because maybe, in one way or another, he was part of this. Not all the others, but this occasion was his. He drew out the pristine white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped her mouth.

This was his doing. This was something he needed to fix.

But he had to ask, if only for some peace behind the tearful eyes. "You want me to call Chuck?" Because really, Vermont to them was this weekend.

She shook her head furiously. When he cleaned up her face, he helped her up.

"Don't be a martyr," he muttered. Blair Waldorf was so many things, and a martyr should never be one of them. "It doesn't suit you."

Even with the prim clothes, Blair Waldorf was no saint. And she had done enough sacrifice and forgiveness for an undeserving boy.

"I'm not doing it for him," she said quietly. "I don't want him to know anything else about me. I don't want to hear anything about him." The voice that he heard was too unemotional to be credible as that. She gripped his arm as she struggled to keep herself upright. And damn if the very gesture, of her needing to hold onto him, did not send his blood boiling.

Even after the sight of blood.

"I don't want him to ever be involved in my life. Not anymore." And then she mirrored the last words the boy had said to her out of his spite. "I'm over it."

This was what triumph tasted like.

If she tasted half as good, he was never coming up for air.

 

 

******Part 6**

The dark moons under her eyes were shadows cast by her lashes. And those little half-moons waxed and waned with every flicker of her lashes. It was not a peaceful sleep. He did not expect it to be. She had made a gash in her gut that made her insides bleed. And the boy, with all the cynicism he postured to have, had been so gullible he cut the gash deeper.

On some level, Jack knew, he himself pushed enough to cut her more.

He glanced at his watch. Two hours since they saw to her, gotten her details, and until now no one had come barging through the doors apart from a short foreign woman who had made a face at the blood drops on the discarded clothes and hurried away promising to be back with new clothes for Miss Blair.

Jack shrugged, because it did not matter either way. Even in a starchy white cotton hospital gown, he would imagine her the way he wanted.

He wondered if other people were put off, just a little, by a bleeding ulcer. He must not be normal, because even now, if he closed his eyes, he could picture her in a pair of matching undergarments, straddling him with a wicked curve of her lips, while he lay back on his nephew's office desk.

And he would turn his head and see Chuck standing on the doorway.

"You couldn't call me?" came the quiet voice.

Jack's eyes opened slowly, and he allowed his vision to adjust back to a reality in which Blair was not about to take him inside her. He saw his nephew standing by the door. It was no surprise, so Jack gestured outside.

They faced off, right outside her door. Jack noted the ticking of the boy's jaw, and found it fascinating that he could hold onto his anger to wait for Jack's response when with her, Chuck merely jumped to conclusions and claimed he never wanted the knowledge.

"I thought you said you were over it."

Was he ever this silly as a boy? Probably not. He had been an eighteen-year-old fighting to get out from under the shadow of an impossibly successful older brother.

"This is Blair. You don't get over Blair," Chuck admitted softly.

And damn if he didn't know that firsthand, not that he even tried. But if he did, Jack knew it would be a venture into failure.

And so he stated, "She didn't want you to know."

The petite nurse who had helped Blair into a fresh hospital gown stopped by the door and excused herself. Chuck snatched the chart from the young woman's arms, and the nurse protested. Jack grasped the bottom of the chart and tugged, but Chuck held firm. Their gazes slammed together. Chuck tightened his jaw even more, if it were possible. "I want to see it."

"Not yours to see, Chuck." And jerked.

Jack handed the chart back to the nurse. "Forgive Mr Bass. He comes off as overeager at times."

When Chuck pushed against Jack to step into the room, the nurse's eyes widened. "Sir, you have to go. Miss Waldorf requested specifically not to allow Mr Chuck Bass into her room."

While the boy digested the news, Jack leaned forward and whispered, "Go on, Chuck. No need to embarrass yourself."

But the boy was already looking over his shoulder, through the glass of the doorway. "She's waking up," he observed. And he must have been desperate, because Jack knew the boy trusted him only as far as he could throw him, and against the wall of a Bass building with Chuck holding him up by his lapels wasn't a very good distance. "Tell her I'm here. I want to see her."

He entered her room, and he noted the register of surprise in her eyes. The expression turned quickly to recognition, and eventually he saw that she remembered what happened that brought her here. "Does my mom know?"

"I don't think they reached her," he answered. "But your maid's been here."

"Did she say she'll get me new clothes?" she asked, and it sounded like she expected the answer anyway.

"And she called Chuck," Jack told her, nodding towards the doorway. "He wants to talk to you."

In response, mirroring how the boy had earlier turned his back and walked away from her, she turned on the bed so she would face away from him. Jack looked up at the boy, who had correctly interpreted the gesture and stalked away from the room.

He was a grown man, who should have no business being there in her room for four hours now.

Sometimes, the nurses would peer in the room and whisper, and he had grown up seeing enough times when his parents would mutter under their breaths as they watched him and compared him to the better son to know when he was being talked about.

Did they wonder who he was to her?

"Will he take you away from me?" he asked, with all the brash Bass confidence he could muster.

And unfortunately, it was the same brash confidence she probably had grown allergic to by now. Especially now. "You never had me, Jack."

He sat heavily on the chair, because she was a bitch and she was taking him down along with her. It was her revenge, he realized, for destroying her.

Then again, didn't you have to destroy a relic to give rise to something far more beautiful?

"Will you shut up with the denial, for once, and let me in?" he demanded. "I'm willing to stick through this with you." And fuck if that wasn't the first time he ever said that, ever thought that.

She lifted her gaze to meet his, and he hated that she looked at him like he was the young one, the one who made himself sick with a purseful of insecurities. "Do you know what you'll be, Jack?"

"What?"

"You'll be a substitute," she informed him, in a voice so cool and aloof he wondered how it was she didn't crack before his eyes. It was beyond the freezing point.

"If I agree," he said slowly, despising himself for doing so, "will you stop pushing me away?"

Wasn't the deal that he was going to destroy her? He was spiraling down with her and he was sure this was bound to destroy him too.

When she didn't answer, he stood. When he started to move away, she caught his wrist. "You're pathetic," she told him.

"And you're a fucking bitch," he responded, without a trace of hatred in his voice.

She challenged, "Tell them to release me. Now."

And he never backed away from a challenge. The moment the maid came with designer clothes he thought were far too conservative still for her, the papers were signed and bills were paid.

"In cash," he told her. "Because you don't want your mother to know."

His breath hitched when she appeared pleased. It was juvenile, and really, if it was for anyone else, he would have abhorred the reaction.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~

It was not as if Jack did not see him. And he doubted if Chuck did not see him.

He sat inside the black towncar as he waited for four in the afternoon so he could watch her hurry out of the school with her head held high.

And they moved towards her, this crowd of little girls who seemed to worship and detest her at the same time. He smirked. That sounded familiar. She looked down at them and waved, then walked towards her best friend and a boy he had never met before. The blonde was wrapped around the boy, but given that he did not care, he never bothered to peg a label.

He turned his attention to his nephew as he stood outside the school, leaning against a tree, with the smoke from his cigarette curling around his head.

Chuck watched her through the fog of smoke.

The boy knew about his presence, but did not take his eyes off of Blair.

This was Chuck Bass when he was over a girl.

Jack chuckled and noticed the exact moment when Blair spotted Chuck outside the school. He could tell, because of the way she gathered herself up and pulled her bag closer to her body. Blair turned to her friends and stopped at the gate.

To her left, Chuck leaned against the tree, watching her from hooded eyes. To her right, the town car was parked, and Jack sat inside. Jack unlatched the door and opened it in invitation.

She turned right, to his pleasure. And then she walked right past him. He cursed, then got out of the car. When he turned back to Chuck, the boy was already halfway down the street in the opposite direction.

"Blair," he called out.

"Not now, Jack."

"When then?" he pressed.

She regarded him from head to toe, in a way that curled his toes even though others would shudder with insecurity given her arched eyebrow. "If you think you've done enough to get laid—"

"Dinner," he bit out. "Just dinner." To hell with the fact that once it started, he would probably not be able to keep himself down and would burst through his pants after appetizers.

She pursed her lips. "Text me where. And if it's anywhere Chuck will see, I'm not even going to bother."

"What do you care?"

She narrowed her eyes, then walked on her way back home. Jack stormed back to the town car and curtly told his chauffeur to take him back to the office.

His assistant stood up the moment he walked in, and stammered that Chuck had moved their six o'clock and the board was meeting right then. Jack grabbed the documents that he had not yet read then slammed into the conference room. He took his seat right at the left of Chuck's empty seat. He looked up at the boy who stood beside the projected screen.

The little boy clearly thought this was how war games were played.

"Jack, nice of you to drop by," Chuck drawled.

"Thank you, Mr Bass," Jack replied pointedly.

The boy had already dropped the gauntlet. The only respectable thing to do was to pick it up and slap the boy with it.

And right now, he had his hands on the only weapon that could take down a Bass.

 

**Part 7**

He stepped out of the elevator in a black dinner jacket and a pair of jeans. He checked his reflection in the mirror, then pulled at the collar of his shirt, then wondered if he should have kept his first choice of a salmon button down as opposed to the black turtleneck he wore. First he had thought the salmon too feminine, so he had shrugged on a blue shirt and grimaced at the hackneyed appearance. He was worse than a woman, because even when he settled on the turtleneck he landed on the black after discarding a red one and then a mustard one.

"Mr Jack," the maid—Dorota, he found out from Blair—stammered, "Miss Blair not expect you here."

"Who was that, Dorota?"

Jack turned and saw her, in a pretty red Valentino that was more suitable for her with the amount of skin it bared. And he broke into a smile, just at the sight. Her eyes fell to the flowers he clutched. "They're beautiful," she commented. When he moved to hand them to her, she turned to Dorota. "Put them in water for me?"

"Yes, Miss Blair."

Jack tamped down the burgeoning offense when he had to hand his carefully selected tulips to the maid. When he stepped forward, she held up her hand. "I told you to text me where to meet you," she said sharply.

His eyes narrowed, and he noticed the rise and fall of her breasts seemed quicker, shallower. Jack forged forward and stopped at the sight of his nephew sitting on the chaise with his elbows resting on his thighs.

"What's he doing here?" he demanded, because he had a right to. This was his night.

It was, he admitted after the words flew out of his mouth, not the right thing to ask. "He's my guest."

"Is he?" he asked softly. If he hadn't been crazy about her, he would have grabbed her by her shoulders and shook her until her teeth rattled. "Were you planning on standing me up?"

When she pulled away, he realized he had unconsciously grasped her elbow. "I was planning to meet you if you bothered with my simple request and texted me where."

Jack backed away, if only so he would not lose the chance. "What does he want?"

"That's not any of your business," she told him.

And really, he wondered if his hand could span enough that he could wrap one around her neck and just squeeze.

And he would leave, but not without a final reminder, in the off chance that she wavered.

"You're obsessed with being wanted, being loved," he reminded her. In her drunken slurring he had learned more about her unrequited desires for acceptance from an ambitious mother, for attention from a self-involved boyfriend, for time from an independent father and finally, for love from a boy too immature to recognize it. "I could tell from the first night I saw you. That boy is too hung up on himself that he wouldn't have the energy or the time to think of anyone else."

The boy was a narcissist, and he wondered if she knew that.

Her lips curved. "Didn't you know?" she whispered. "Apparently, I'm a masochist."

And so, it seemed like, was Jack.

Because hell if he wasn't completely obsessed with a girl who was obsessed with a boy who was obsessed with himself.

"I'll be waiting for you," he told her, "at Nolita. One hour, Blair. Finish this."

It was a conscious effort to leave, to trust that she would keep her word. But this was Blair Waldorf and if this was going to last like he predicted, trust was at the top of the items they needed to establish. He grasped her skull with both hands and gave her an openmouthed kiss.

And that night, her lips parted of their own volition and she received his thrusting tongue. And the passion that he pumped into the kiss calmed and he almost felt like their tongues were dancing.

When they parted, her eyes shone with tears and she turned away before he could ask why.

He had waited at the bar, nursed a glass of scotch for fifteen minutes and watched a man fall on his knees and draw out a diamond ring to the audible delight of the girl he was with. And he joined the crowd's elation for the two customers by clapping his hands with them.

He was on his third scotch when the man on the barstool beside him toppled over, and his buddy had to half drag him towards the exit.

On his ninth scotch, two hours after the time he had given Blair, Jack tossed a bill on the bar and struggled off his stool. The restaurant whirled, but he grabbed the bar until he could steady himself. A pretty brunette in a white tube dress sidled up beside him and held him upright.

"Blair," he rasped.

"Sure," the girl replied, but her voice was not low enough, her gaze not demeaning enough, her stance not haughty enough, for him to fool himself.

He pulled away and out of Nolita, then flagged a cab, not bothering with the limo he had managed to put his hands on for the evening because really, Blair Waldorf was a girl who deserved tulips and limousine and he doubted Chuck ever bothered.

Jack made his way back to her penthouse, ready to demand answers, because she kissed him like he had wanted her to kiss him. And he had given her everything she could possibly want to feel better about herself, everything she wanted that none of the little boys gave him. And if that wasn't enough he didn't know what would be.

In the dead of the night, the maid did not stand guard over the elevator. And evidently, the security below had a standing permission for Mr Bass' entry. Even as it benefited him the fact irked at his brain. Jack slipped into the apartment and climbed the white steps. The corridor was silent, and he almost turned to leave her to her sleep until he heard the throaty gasp that was somewhere between pain and pleasure. He walked towards the door and pushed gently.

Through the small crack he saw the vanity, and noticed the vase of his tulips sitting on top of it. And he just had to imagine that she leaned and smelled them while she prepared for bed.

His focus adjusted from the flowers to the mirror, and saw the moving reflection.

And they were completely naked.

Chuck held onto her narrow waist as he sat on the edge of the bed. Blair Waldorf sat astride the boy, with her hands gripping Chuck's shoulders, bouncing on his lap, gasping in pain and pleasure, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Chuck's hips pushed up to meet hers whenever she ground down. The boy captured her lower lip between his teeth and pulled, and she released a guttural cry before her frantic movements stopped, and the boy held her hips firmly down. Jack watched breathlessly as he watched Chuck's throat working, saw the muscles of his throat stand out as he swallowed.

And Jack knew that exact moment the boy was pumping her full.

Jack grasped the doorframe and held the angle as the mirror showed Chuck falling back on the sheets, and Blair Waldorf lying on top of him. Chuck's chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. Blair was a collapsed, unmoving heap draped over the little boy, with one leg thrown over Chuck's thigh, parting her enough that he could see the moisture on her inner thighs.

Jack ran his fingers through his hair.

"I'm sorry," he heard the boy say. "I don't want you to hide anything from me, just because you think I can't deal with it."

And she buried her face deep into the moist skin of his neck. "But you can't."

"I will," Chuck promised. "From now on, I'll be the one taking care of us."

"Promise," she urged him.

And the words made him sicker than the sight of Chuck on her.

"Promise," he told her. And then, he began, "Blair, I—" She waited, and Jack waited. Because he would bet his life Chuck Bass would not say the words. "I do. I—"

She sighed, and Jack watched in fascination as she turned her naked body away, showing him a reflection of full frontal nakedness he could hardly think straight. "It's alright, Chuck. I can wait," she whispered.

Jack's morbid fascination increased tenfold when Chuck now turned to Blair and wrapped his arms around her waist, and buried a kiss on the small of her back. Her eyes closed, and she said softly, "I love you."

And the words were like acid to him. Jack stumbled away from the doorway and quickly made his way down the stairs. He entered the elevator and trembled in the corner. He flagged a cab and made his way back to Nolita, sober, itching, hard, aching.

He spotted her immediately, the brunette in the white tube dress who had wanted him. Her brown hair was curled at her shoulders. And it could have been longer, but right then he didn't care. He stalked up to her and she immediately turned to him.

"One grand," she pronounced when she saw his face.

Brilliant.

Get it out of the way now. He picked the cash from his money clip because afterwards he didn't want to look at her and lose his illusion.

"You got a place?" the girl asked after she pocketed the money.

He gave her a thin smile. "Bathroom. Now."

He locked the bathroom door after them, then propelled the girl towards the sink. The girl turned to face him with an enticing smile, and he returned it with a smirk, then shook his head. Jack grasped her waist and turned her so that they were both facing the mirror. And then, he turned on the faucet.

The running water would be their music.

He undid his belt and dropped his pants and boxers to the floor. The girl met his eyes in the mirror and handed him a foil packet. Jack ripped through it and placed the protection on. He pulled up the slinky skirt of the tube dress, then pushed her forward for easier access. He pulled the thongs aside, then held her hips steady against the cold marble sink.

He grasped himself with one hand, then looked up at the reflection.

And it was Blair's face, tearstreaked, bloodied, afraid.

"Tell me you love me," he demanded.

"I love you," the girl said softly.

"Again."

"I love you."

"Now tell me you hate me."

And there was some emotion when the girl hissed, "I hate you."

And he rammed inside her from behind. He closed his eyes, worked to breath as he draped his torso over her back. She adjusted to him, and he flexed his hips so he could thrust again. "Say it," he demanded.

"I love you."

"Shit," he muttered, pumping heavily, pushing, pushing forcefully and he could hear her grunting as she received him. "I love you, Blair. He doesn't love you. Can't even say it." He opened his eyes, and saw her eyes growing teary as the marble bit into her stomach. "Just a little more. Just a little."

And he exploded, pouring out everything he had been holding inside since New Year's Eve when he saw her for the first time. He gasped for breath, then pulled away from the girl. She turned and mechanically assisted him out of the condom and threw it away. The girl opened her purse and reapplied her makeup. He watched her put on her lip gloss, even when it didn't get wiped off.

Jack straightened his jacket, then put his pants back on.

"Hey. You dropped your phone."

He turned and reached for the phone, and the illusion of Blair's face was slowly melting away. He left before he could really see her for who she was and lose the value of his payment. He checked the message waiting on the phone.

'Jack. We need to talk. B.'

 

 

**Part 8**

She was a masochist and so was he, Jack thought as he stepped out of the elevator and saw the neatly packed bags piled against the wall. When he looked up, he saw Blair directing Dorota to retire. Hoe she managed to look so innocent and untouched after what he had witnessed the night before was a mystery, but clad in her white button down traveling coat and cream tights that vanished into white boots, she was like a pure and perfect angel that just begged to be taken.

"Going somewhere?" he managed, but even as he looked at her the memory of Chuck's hands gripping her naked waist flashed in his head.

"I'm sorry for standing you up." Her chin lifted, and even as she apologized he could still recognize the pride in her eyes. And it told him he was below her. But he wasn't.

Not anymore.

She was just as pathetic as he, just as depraved, just as desperate. Chuck's hands had been all over her; Chuck had filled her; Chuck had taken her without needing to say the words that Jack knew, from such a short time in her presence, Blair needed to hear like she needed air to breathe. And now she was no longer a pristine princess, unattainable and proud. She was just like him now. She was nothing.

"Where's Chuck?"

And her eyes registered surprise that he even knew. She respected his intelligence enough not to lie. "He'll be by in a half hour to pick me up." Blair turned to the mirror in the entryway and checked her appearance, pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. She met his eyes on the reflection.

"You're staying with him," he concluded.

Blair held his gaze and he saw the flickering uncertainty behind the confidence she portrayed.

"How long can you stay like this?" he asked, latching on to the fear.

"Jack," she said firmly, "I love him."

She was so young, to think that answered everything. When only, it only served to make matters worse. The disaster was reaching calamity and he allowed her drag him along. "You love him," he acknowledged. Jack placed his hands on her arms. "But who's going to love you?" he breathed into her ear. "You need someone to love you too."

She pulled her head away, so that his lips wouldn't touch the shell of her ear. "It's different now," she insisted. "He's different now."

The tremor in her voice was his best friend. His hands moved to massage her upper arms. "He hasn't done anything to deserve you." The boy ran to her when he needed someone, and still could not give the same way he took. And he took a lot. Out of Blair, Chuck took so very much Jack was afraid he would once day find her with nothing left. "I can make you feel beautiful," he promised against the back of her head, with his lips buried in her hair. "I can worship you the way you deserve."

Her movements were stiff, robotic as she extricated herself. Her awkward hands jerked to her ears, then to her neck. "My pearls," she stammered, in a transparent effort to take the mood to the direction she wanted. Blair ran up the stairs and Jack followed closely behind her.

He watched from the doorway, from the very spot he had been standing on the night before. Her bed was made and he was grateful, because there was no way he could stand the sight of the mussed sheets where the boy had taken the girl. Blair Waldorf put on her large pearl earrings and clasped a pearl choker around her neck.

She spied him watching her and frowned. Her phone rang and she picked it up from its place on the bed and lifted it to her ear. Blair turned her back on him, and Jack watched her reflection in the mirror to see her face.

"Yes," she whispered, "I'm all ready to go."

That pause.

A broken, "Oh." She hung up the phone and tossed it back on the bed. Her eyes lifted, her lashes spiky with tears. "He's not coming," she said. "Again." And still he faced away from him, but she could see her look away.

And it was his invitation to step across the threshold. "Are you angry?" He prayed she was, because he could stoke the embers and turn up a roaring fire.

She shook her head. "I'm too numb to be angry." Slowly, her hands reached up to her nape and she tried to unclasp the choker that had too easily closed. He saw the tremor of her hands, the way the pearls slipped from her fingers. "Dammit!" She shook her hands and then tried again, only to fail once more.

"Let me."

She released a long breath. Jack's hands brushed warmth against the sides of her neck. She shivered and lowered her head. The clear view of her smooth nape brought him back to where he was, and he spread his hand and thought he could snap her neck with just one quick movement.

And then she'd be like a broken doll lying on her bed with her neck twisted, dressed in her pretty white clothes, her tears dried sticky patches on her face.

She was so delicate, and Chuck had broken her enough. Jack bent and placed a kiss on her bare neck. He dropped the pearls into her open palm. "I can make you feel wanted," he offered.

Blair shook her head. "Just leave me alone." She stood up and placed her pearl necklace back in its box, then removed her earrings and dropped them right along. Drained, she walked over to the bed and sat down on it heavily. She seemed so exhausted when she bent and started to take off her shoe.

Jack slowly knelt on the carpeted floor and released her foot from the boot, then lifted the other to do the same. He looked up at her and saw her watching him with somber eyes. Without taking his gaze off her, he placed a kiss on the arch of her foot. Her leg stiffened. His hand wrapped around her ankle to stay her, then climbed up to her calf and massaged.

"Let me show you," he urged her, because she had shown Chuck and now it was Jack's turn.

His hands climbed up to her thighs and Blair held her breath when his fingers vanished under the coat, under the dress. He grasped the waistband of her tights and slowly, deliciously, dragged off the tights to reveal her skin. He flung to tights over to the vanity and kissed the backs of her knees. Blair gasped, appearing mesmerized by the slow, certain movements. He pulled her legs over his shoulders as he knelt right before her. Blair fell back on the bed and he glanced up and saw her close her eyes.

"Let me make you feel better."

He kissed a burning path on the insides of her thighs. She squirmed, and he grasped her hips to bring her closer. Her hair spread out on the sheet as the static made them stick and fan out around her head.

"You're beautiful," he said softly, and he buried his nose in the crotch of her underwear, feeling the moist heat radiating from her. "I want you so much." Blair released a choking noise from the back of her throat, and he smiled against the cloth covering, causing her to moan at the sensation. His hands slowly drew her panties down her legs. He dropped the material on the floor. And he could see her, so close, so gorgeous. He had wanted to see her for far too long.

He glanced up at her face, and gritted his teeth and the tear streaking down the corner of her eye, down her temple and vanishing into her hair. Jack pressed his lips to her, parting her ever so slightly with the pressure of his mouth, and said, right into her, "I love you."

And she sobbed in the utter pleasure of it. He felt the tiny spasms against his face.

Her fingers dove into his hair, her fingertips buried themselves in his skull and she pulled him closer. The legs that had hung so loosely over his shoulders now tightened as she hooked him to her, capturing him against her, so close he could feel himself buried in her scent and her sounds. His tongue teased her, and she cried out in response when he thrust and parried into her. Her fingers tightened on his hair. "Please," she whispered.

Jack used the skill of his mouth and fervent flicks of his tongue to send her crashing. She liquefied under his ministrations and bucked her hips up closer to him. He drank as much of her as he could, and when she melted on the sheets, and she relaxed her legs, Jack placed a tender kiss on the insides of her thighs.

Blair turned to her side and Jack climbed up onto the bed to lie behind her. He was hard and aching, and he pressed himself against her back. She sniffled as she closed her eyes.

She said softly, "Do you need—"

"No," he said quickly, kissing her moist neck, "maybe later." Because she was his. Finally. Just when he had no more schemes, no more plans, it was Chuck who gave her to him. And he would give her everything the boy could not, would not realize until he was older and looked back at everything he had lost. "Sleep," he advised.

In his arms.

Today and every day.

She nodded, then buried her face in her pillow. Her back shook and he knew she was not asleep. Tentatively, he placed a hand on her back to soothe her, but jerked it away when she flinched. Very slowly, she edged her body away from his. He felt the suddenly cold air in the space between them.

Even then, the sleep he had was the longest most restful in his life. His eyes opened to the bright afternoon sun streaming in from the windows. Jack reached forward and found an empty space instead of the warm body that shook and trembled even as he drifted off. He sat up and looked around the empty bedroom.

Jack hurried out and bounded down the stairs, found the bags missing from their place against the wall. He cursed under his breath.

If Chuck had arrived belatedly, and she had left with him for the trip that had been canceled over and over…

If she forgave him after that…

If she chose Chuck… Again.

"Fuck!" he cried. He pounded his fist on the call button of the elevator. "Fucking bitch," he muttered. Jack collapsed against the back wall of the elevator. The doors opened on a couple of floors, but he glared at the waiting passengers that no one entered the elevator. He ran out of the building and hailed a cab, then spat out the address of Bass Industries.

He went past the assistants and straight into Chuck's office. If Chuck was gone, he would know. Jack threw open the door and saw the younger Bass asleep on the desk.

He released his breath and felt tears of relief rise. His nostrils flared, and he pressed his fingers on the bridge of his nose. Jack closed the door and laid his head back against it.

"Jack."

Jack slowly lowered his hand and turned to the boy, who rubbed sleep from his eyes and regarded him in confusion. "Shouldn't you be on a trip with your girlfriend?" he managed slowly.

The boy rose, and he picked up the folders in front of him then placed them on a pile. "I would appreciate it if we don't talk about Blair."

But Jack pressed on. "Where is she, Chuck?"

Chuck's lips thinned. "Probably at her penthouse, where I should head off to. I need to spend the entire night making up for postponing on her so I can work through the day."

And he could spot a Bass lie the moment it was uttered.

This was not a lie.

Chuck walked towards him and handed him the stack of folders. "This deal is crap. Trash it," Chuck said. "Waste of time." Chuck passed by him and placed a hand on the door.

"She's not there," Jack said quietly.

Chuck scowled and turned to his uncle. "What do you mean?"

"She's gone, Chuck."

tbc

* * *

**Chapter 9: Chapter 9**

* * *

Part 9

The first time he met Chuck, the boy had been a squirming creature bundled in white silk, held up by a pretty young woman who sat in a rocking chair that faced a full glass window overlooking Manhattan. Jack had been twelve, and had made the trip to his older brother's New York hotel so that his mother could peek at the newborn who would inherit a kingdom.

Jack remembered that day. He rode in that elevator and watched the numbers swiftly change near the ceiling. He had wondered then, if his brother lived in heaven, because the ride never seemed to stop. Up and up and up they went, and his mother whispered into his ear, "Almost there, Jack. Don't be scared. We've almost reached Chuck." Jack had nodded somberly, because Chuck lived so high up and his ears seemed so full and heavy he waited for them to pop.

Like they did on the plane ride here.

It was so amazing that they were going to visit Jack's baby boy and needed to travel through the sky to get to him.

Chuck must have been so special, he had thought. His mother made him miss school, had pulled him out for the afternoon much to his classmates' envy. His teacher had excused him for the next few days. Out in the courtyard, Jack noticed his mother's red eyes, her red nose. She looked so sad, like she was sad when his dad died.

Jack wondered if Bart was the one who died now. "Mama?" he prompted. Jack's hand had touched his mother's face, and his little thumb caught a tear. "What's wrong?"

His mother forced a smile, then caught his hand. "You and me, Jack—we're going to New York City. You remember Evelyn?"

Bart had brought home the pretty lady and they all celebrated more than they did any other time Bart came home. When Bart returned to their small town, there was always a big to-do. He was the most successful out of the boys who left the town to make their own place in the world. One day, Bart took the lovely girl to meet their mother, and they threw a big party when they found out Bart was getting married.

Jack nodded. "Bart's wife."

"Well," his mother told him with a shaky voice, "we're visiting Bart because Evelyn's gone, and he has a new baby with no one to take care of him."

He frowned, because his mother was his caretaker and the baby should have a mom to take care of it too. Poor kid. "Bart's rich now. Can't he pay someone?"

His mother nodded, and grew ever sadder. Jack told himself not to bring up the idea again. It made his mom so sad. "Little Chuck has a nanny. But it's different when you're family."

On the plane ride over to New York, Jack clutched his mother's arm as they jetted through the sky. He was seated by the window, and the town he loved grew smaller and smaller until the little houses were noting but colorful dots below them. It was his first plane ride, and when the plane was angled up towards the sky he thought New York City was so high up it was close to the heaven. Even when he felt bad for the baby he thought how cool it was to be living up so high.

But then they landed, and drove through the shockingly busy streets. So many people on one street. More people, he thought, than the entire population of their hometown. When his mother pulled him along to the elevator, Jack craned his neck to watch the numbers move.

It was just when he thought that they were in heaven that his mother pushed at his shoulders. "We're here, Jack."

He was shuffled out, and Jack's eyes grew wide at the sight of the glass windows that proved to him that the baby boy really lived in the clouds.

"Jack, it's good to see you."

Jack looked up at the figure of his older brother. His mother's hand urged him to step forward. Jack did, but stared up at the looming character in front of him. He was his big brother, and he was not. With such a gap in their age Bart never felt like a brother should. He thrust out his hand to Bart, who chuckled and shook it.

"Mama, thank you for coming," Bart murmured.

And then suddenly, his mother pushed him aside to envelop Bart with a warm hug. Again, Jack saw his mother cry. His mother kissed Bart on his cheeks and swore she would help him out as long as she could. Jack thought back to his school, and his friends, and wondered how soon he would see them again.

"How would you like to meet new friends, Jack?" Bart asked in a hoarse voice.

Jack had shrugged and told him, "I like new friends just fine."

His mother seemed reluctant to tear herself from Bart's side. But she went over to Jack and knelt in front of him. Jack touched the silver strands on his mother's hair. "Jack, you're going to attend a nice upscale school for boys here in New York City. Wouldn't that be nice?"

No more of his buddies, no more of the teachers he really liked. But his mother's eyes shone with tears and his own excitement, and Jack just wanted to please her.

"Okay, mama."

She broke into a relieved smile, then was once more right with Bart, holding his hand, consoling him. That was when Jack wandered into the next room.

"Wow!" he declared in awe.

The nurse on the rocking chair held up a finger to her lips. Jack gazed wide-eyed at the shelves and shelves of toys surrounding the room. It had a wider selection than the biggest toy stores in his town. Jack pattered over to one shelf, then spotted the brand new ninja robot warrior they had displayed at the toy store. He had wanted it for his birthday, but his mother found it too pricey and impractical. He glanced at the swaddled baby. Chuck was too little to play it. His fingers would be too small to press the buttons to activate it. Jack's feet pattered over to it. It was too high for him to reach. Jack grasped the upper shelf and placed his feet on the next shelf, then hoisted himself up, and up. Finally, his destination. He plucked it out of the shelf, and sent about four more of Chuck's expensive toys clattering to the floor.

He glanced up guiltily, then heard the loud shrieks of the baby. Jack ran up to the nurse and shushed Chuck. The nurse rocked the baby to comfort him.

When the door opened, Jack squirmed. It was his mother and Bart. The two looked at the heap of toys on the floor. His mother's eyes zoned in on the robot that Jack clutched in his hand.

Chuck calmed down, and the screaming turned to mewling.

"It's alright, mama," he heard Bart say.

Jack hated it when his mother was sad, or angry. And now she was both. She stalked over to him. She snatched the robot from Jack's hand. Jack watched as the robot was placed in Chuck's crib. "This is not yours, Jack. This is Chuck's. Don't touch any of Chuck's toys. Learn your place," she said in a harsh whisper.

His gaze flew up to Bart, who gestured to the nurse. The nurse took the baby out of the nursery.

"This is Chuck's room; Chuck's house."

"Ma, that's not necessary," Bart protested.

Their mother glared at Bart. It was not an occurrence that happened often, so even Bart zipped his mouth. "We all have our place in the world," she told Bart. "You've worked your way out of it. He hasn't done that yet." She turned back to Jack, and her gaze softened slightly. "You will thank me for it when you're a man. Remember Jack, you only have a right to things you earn for yourself."

Jack wondered what the little baby did to earn so many toys, and to live up in the sky. But he didn't ask his mother. You didn't ask his mother when she was sad or angry.

It was not a little boy who sat in front of him now, nursing a glass of scotch. In other circumstances, he would have been more sympathetic to the boy. Chuck had lost his mother when he was born, and had only just lost his father. But Jack had lost his father far too early, and was left with nothing but scrap metal from a barely working car. He had a mother, but Chuck took her away. She had spend the last months of her life taking care of the baby that Bart had been barely able to hold in his own grief.

And he was the boy who lived in heaven.

Now, Chuck looked so different from the angel that his mother adored. With his dark-rimmed eyes and a back that curved so sharply, as if protecting his gut from something unknown, Chuck appeared defeated, helpless.

"Too much," the boy said. "She's had too much." Chuck held up his phone, squinting at the text. Jack gritted his teeth, because there was nothing like it in his inbox. No explanation like the one she was obviously able to do for Chuck.

Jack remained silent. He took a glass and poured scotch for himself.

Chuck scowled, then faced Jack. "What was I supposed to do? I can't—I'm barely holding on. She wants more than I can give her right now." His voice dropped. "She's the one who wants too much. And I've been trying. Why the hell would she leave me now right when I need her the most?"

Jack tipped the glass down his throat. "Maybe it's not about you," he finally said.

The boy had everything in the world, and this was how he responded.

"Then what?" Chuck snapped. "You?"

Jack smiled thinly, then finished his drink. "Maybe." He felt, rather than saw, when Chuck's shackles rose. "Or maybe it's about Blair. Maybe leaving is what's best for her."

"She's lived here her whole life, and you think being out there with strangers would be better?"

Jack waited, because even if Chuck was a kid, he was sure he could put it together. And he did. He saw the realization the moment it hit him. He had run away when it became too much, when he needed to escape and forget. He had left his friends and everyone who said they were family.

"I'm gonna find her," Chuck said in resolution.

Jack poured himself another glass. This was the time, because admission would be easier for her in the long run. So he said, "I'm gonna find her, Chuck."

"The hell you will. Stop messing with us."

He leaned over to his nephew. "I've been in love with her since before I dragged your ass back here. Just thought you should know." He slid out of his barstool and took his full glass with him.

"Does she know?" Jack heard his nephew call to him.

He turned, raised his glass to Chuck, and said, "Of course she does."

"No wonder she ran away," the boy returned.

Jack drank his scotch, then discarded the glass on a vase pedestal. He walked out of the bar and entered the town car he had waiting for him. Jack settled into the backseat. He called the lawyer, and retrieved the name and contact details of the PI in Bart's employ.

And then he called the man.

"I need you to find someone for me."

The man did not miss a beat. "Blair Waldorf."

"How did you know?"

"Just got off the phone with Chuck Bass for the exact same thing. No can do, boss. I'm on an exclusive project. The boy's the one who's got the money," answered the investigator.

"I'll double the fee," Jack offered. There were tons of other PIs out there, but this was different. This was hiring someone out from under Chuck's nose. He needed to get something that Chuck was sure was his.

"It's a matter of establishing good business relationships. Sorry. This is the Bass heir."

Jack hung up the phone. He would find another man, a better investigator, a faster worker, even a more expensive one.

The Bass heir.

Always, it had to be the Bass heir over him.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He missed her, her fragrance, her eyes, her voice. He licked his lips, in the vain hope that there would still be a faint trace of her coating them. But there was nothing but scotch on his tongue. His hand rose to touch himself over his pants. Jack squeezed himself, imagining it was her hand. He gripped even tighter, remembering the noises she made she came on his face.

"Blair." The name flew from his lips. His hips rose from the seat. He unbuttoned his pants and lid his hand inside his boxer's and grasped himself. He would find her. Soon. Even before Chuck did. He would find her. And then he would bury himself so deep inside her, look down into her eyes and hear her gasp into his ear. His hands worked, faster, lighter, more violently. He grabbed the box of tissues that sat at the back, then grabbed several sheets. He jammed them down in his pants in perfect time. "I love you too," she would moan just the exact moment when her muscles clamped around him. Jack spurted a long, tightly held release, drenching the tissue. He gasped as he tried to catch his breath.

Jack discarded the used tissue, then with a slightly trembling hand, reached for his phone.

tbc

* * *

**Chapter 10: Chapter 10**

* * *

Part 10

If he ever whispered the length of one breath of his dreams since meeting Blair Waldorf, people would label Jack Bass as demented, maybe depraved. But what people would fail to see was that his entire world revolved around that girl. But society was flawed, like he was, and he understood the complexities of the veneer the world chose to hide behind—where there were taboos, and rules, and little proprieties that turned everyone into boxed in bottled up creatures who were tamping down the need to explode.

Every day, he saw Chuck in the office, hunched over his desk, radiating energy when he was merely typing, or browsing. He wondered what Chuck worked on late at night when the lights were off outside his room and the boy glared intently at his screen.

It was an undeclared race.

Jack waited beside his phone for any of the seven PIs he had hired to call him back.

Every night, it was the same old scene, when Bass Industries was deserted by all its employees, there were only two rooms lit. The rooms were the biggest in the building, the most luxurious, the most prominent. Outside its doors hung two names very similar. And Jack would turn his head and glance at the boy as he worked in front of his computer. Sometimes he felt Chuck gaze back through their glass walls to see Jack willing the phone to ring with his intent glare.

She visited his dream.

In the very last one, he saw her drowning. Jack was on a dock, an unfamiliar one, one he had never been on before. The water was restless, close to violent. And he saw her face, just for a brief moment he saw her take a deep breath, and then the river ate her. There had been no hesitation. Jack shed his coat, kicked off his shoes. Idly he noticed one leather shoe roll off the plank and into the water. It vanished forever.

He dove into the water, and like in all dreams there was no explanation when suddenly he was dunk under and he saw her body, fully clothed, struggling a few feet below him. Jack dove deeper to reach for her. Their eyes met under the murky water, and he signaled to her.

It would be alright. He would save her.

Jack reached right to her, reached out his hand to grasp her arm, but he only teased water. With a kick of his leg, Jack wrapped his arm around her waist.

And then she kicked, and kicked, and struggled away.

He was saving her. He held her tight against his body as he kicked to bring them both up towards the light, where he knew there was air.

Blair's body twisted in his. They were still so far, and she struggled against him until she twisted her body around and she stared straight into his eyes. With his palms on his chest, she pushed him away. And then, without taking her gaze away from his, she opened her mouth and sucked in a large breath of the dark water.

Jack saw Blair Waldorf die.

A few feet away from him, while he watched, he saw the exact moment when the water filled her lungs. And he could not tell why it was he did not drown as well, because he could swear it was too fucking long that he was submerged, watching her body grow limp, float just so, not rising, not sinking, just hanging there like balloon tied to a string. Facedown, her body seemed to turn into a kite. And then she was rising up and he looked up to see her, like always.

Blair Waldorf seemed to float, or he seemed to sink. All he knew was he was under the water looking up at her sightless open eyes.

Jack had kicked his way up, towards the light, towards her, but no matter what he did he sank further and further into the dark bottomless river.

He started awake, and found himself still in his office with the curtains drawn. Light streamed in. He glanced at his desk clock then cursed. He quickly ran to the bathroom and washed his face. And then, he grabbed his phone and strode out of the room. He stopped by his secretary's desk. Chuck's office was empty now.

"Do you know what time Chuck's coming?"

The girl looked up, then smiled shyly, not commenting on the suit that had been slept on, that was so like the one he had worn the day before. "Mr Bass is already with the board, sir."

Jack narrowed his eyes, then proceeded to the conference room where the board usually gathered. He opened the door without preamble. It was second time the board met that he arrived late after sleeping in. The first time was the day he tasted her. The second was after he watched her die.

Both instances, so fucking memorable they would be branded in his head forever.

"Mr Bass," an older gentleman, Mr Henderson, he recalled, greeted him, "today might be your luckiest day. And you weren't even here to watch it unfold."

Jack frowned, looked up at his nephew. Chuck met his eyes. "You win, Jack. I'm too inexperienced for this. You have control until I'm eighteen."

Something of Chuck's. Jack felt the triumph climb in his throat until he almost choked with it. All he could say was, "Why?"

And the board tittered. Chuck excused himself, leaving Jack to the congratulations of the men and women who held much of the stocks of Bass Industries. He affixed a smile on his face as he accepted what should always have been his. No question about it. He had worked hard for it. When finally he extricated himself from the congratulations and the well wishes, Jack made his way, in his purposeful stride, to Chuck's office.

No need to knock.

Even if it was Chuck's door.

His mother was long dead, anyway. There was no one to shake him until he remembered his place—that place that was not quite as nice as Chuck's.

His eyes landed to the large bag on the foot of his desk, the ridiculous amount of cash that Chuck had stacked on the top of his table. Jack met Chuck's eyes. Chuck turned away and placed the money inside a smaller bag.

"You can have it all, Jack," Chuck offered. "Isn't that why you came here anyway?"

Instead of responding in the affirmative, which he would have if he had been more courteous, Jack grasped his nephew's arm. "You found her. Where is she, Chuck?"

Chuck pulled his arm away. "Get away from me." The boy grabbed the two bags and made his way out of the office.

But Jack Bass would not have survived being the younger brother of Bart Bass, would never have emerged from the shadows to have a successful branch of his own, had he not been determined. He caught up to the boy just as Chuck loaded his bags into the back of his limo. When Chuck slipped inside the vehicle, Jack flagged down a cab and followed.

The small private plane sat at the tarmac waiting for the Bass heir. Jack raced towards the stairs just as it was about to close. He showed his passport ID and entered the plane.

"What the hell?" Chuck snarled when he saw him. "Get off the plane, Jack."

"Make a scene and we're both grounded," Jack threatened. "You know how paranoid airport authority is these days." Chuck glanced out at the line of security outside. Jack smirked. "Where is she?"

The motors whirred, and they were running at breakneck speed across the runway. And they were up in the air, in an upward climb into the sky. And they burst through the clouds. He glanced at the boy who was seated stiffly in his seat.

Hong Kong.

Close to twenty hours of nonstop flight. Couldn't imagine how a plane that small could fit enough fuel for the trip.

He had been there countless times before. It was a piss away from Australia, and when the continent grew tiring for him, Jack Bass hopped on the short flight and immersed himself in another planet. Hong Kong was as far and as close to home as he could possibly get. It was a bustling metropolis full of people who looked so familiar sometimes, but ended up as strangers.

And everyone who looked foreign—well, they were the ones who ended up sharing their umbrella.

Blair Waldorf melted into Hong Kong like chocolate tablets vanished into hot water. No matter how many times you stirred, you never caught it. It melted until it was nowhere and everywhere. When Jack Bass thought back to Hong Kong and peered through the tinted windows of the limousine, he wondered why the hell he never even thought of Hong Kong.

It was another planet inside her own.

Blair could enter any one of those buildings and be at home within the unfamiliar city.

It was Chinese New Year, and Hong Kong's Times Square lights could not compare to the fireworks littering the sky. The streets were not moving. People got off the little shuttle buses, waving their octopus cards towards the sky. For a moment, Jack found himself craning his head up high, watching as the black night became a portrait of spattered colors of a too wet paintbrush.

Jack got off the vehicle, because it was going nowhere with the unmoving traffic. The crowd of bodies surrounding him grew thicker with every breath. The lights were brighter now, all around him, from the stalls to the stores to the tall buildings that called to him in their luxury, telling him Blair could possibly be sleeping there.

Or better yet, she would be standing by the window watching the Hong Kong sky declare its New Year.

Wasn't it only a few weeks ago that it was New Year for them, and Chuck was not in the picture, and he was pressed so tightly against her he was the only man she knew?

When he turned back to the car, Chuck was gone. Jack spotted the dark coat vanishing into the night. He pushed his way through the throng, hurried through the clean, narrow streets. He had left his scarf in the limousine, but he fought against the chill of January to follow his nephew.

He walked briskly after Chuck, through the usual streets that curved and rose and fell like the uneven land of Hong Kong. It was a track course, and they both lived unhealthy lifestyles. But Chuck was younger, and youth still spoke so well. He caught himself stopping to regain his breath while Chuck forged on. And so he broke into a jog whenever he could. Just enough distance that he would see where the boy turned. It was easy given the ups and downs of the streets.

Ironically enough, their destination was Happy Village. In her escape, Blair Waldorf knew how to find humor. Jack noted Chuck's entry into the Eaton House, the small five-star apartelle that housed the richest, most private of Hong Kong's long staying visitors.

Of course. Only the best for Blair Waldorf.

He entered the building the exact moment the elevators doors opened. Jack's breath caught at the sight of Blair Waldorf, bundled up in a thick coat he envied right then. She was laughing at a joke that her elevator companion seemed to have cracked. Jack glared at the man before turning back to Blair.

She seemed so relaxed. At peace. More beautiful than she had been when she climaxed under his mouth.

When she noticed the boy standing at the reception, and moved to see him, just at the entrance, all the happiness vanished. She straightened, folded her arms across her chest in a protective gesture, a closed stance, fending them off wordlessly.

"No," she whispered, looking at Jack. "You don't get to do this to me."

Chuck stepped forward before he could respond. The boy placed a hand on her arm. She sucked in her breath at the touch. But she did not flinch. Not the way she did when Jack comforted her. Still, she kept her eyes away. "I can't even talk to you," she said. "I can't even look at you."

The boy swallowed. "Blair, I came to take you home," Chuck told her gently. "Like you wanted me home."

Finally, she stepped away enough that Chuck was forced to let go of her arm. Still she did not loosen the way her arms were folded in front of her. She raised her eyes to the boy, and this time, it was Chuck who flinched. "Did you think you'd find me broken and drunk and wanting to die?" she said. "Get over yourself."

Jack stepped forward, because she was his. Really, even if Chuck could not tell. Even if she was still in denial. One look, and she would remember.

He made her beautiful.

And he made her wanted, loved her.

"Blair," he breathed, just because it was the way her name was supposed to leave your mouth.

"Take your nephew back home," she bit out. "You didn't need to drag him all the way here."

Jack scowled. "I didn't drag him here," he corrected, because Blair did not need to think Jack was pushing the boy on her. Were they not clear enough? Was he not transparent? Did she not fucking see him still?

Was it always going to be about Chuck Bass?

"He's been trying to find you," he spat. "Wouldn't let up since you left. Wouldn't believe that you're mine. Tell him," he coaxed her.

But she was no longer looking at him. Her liquid eyes had turned to Chuck. She gazed at the boy in silence, and Chuck met her eyes with the same wordless plea. And Jack thought, imagined it really, that something in the way that she looked at boy changed.

To his relief, it was not reflected in her words.

"Leave me alone, Chuck," she said softly, without rancor, almost gently. "I'm done. It's over."

And the boy spoke, finally, like he had only just earned his tongue. And all Jack could hear, all Chuck could muster, after all that was, "It's never going to be over, Blair." Chuck leaned, and her eyes drifted closed. He caught the small gasp of a sob that escaped her lips when the boy's lips touched her forehead. And then slowly, she pulled away.

"I need you two to turn around and go back to America. I need you two to leave me alone. Please," she finished.

She was almost calm when she turned her back on them.

"I love you," Jack said firmly.

Blair snapped back to him, where he stood so proudly in his declaration. "For the love of God, Jack, stop it!" she screamed. The receptionist picked up his phone and spoke in quick Mandarin.

And Jack was cold, exhausted from a trip and a race through fucking uneven streets, suffocated by the unbearable crush of people around them for being in an ill-planned trip to Hong Kong on Chinese New Year. And he found her and she was looking at Chuck in a way that she should have learned not to. And she flung his most precious words back to him like they were an irritating burden.

And he was on her, gripping her arms, deaf to the way she cried out in pain. "That wasn't what you said when I had my tongue buried inside you." She flinched, turned her face away from him. Jack glanced at Chuck, who reacted almost immediately. The boy grasped his shoulder and pulled him away. From the periphery of his vision he saw Blair stumble and hold onto a pillar. He bared his teeth, laughing softly. "Fucking bitch. Gave her everything I had." Jack looked back at Blair, who watched Chuck with fearful eyes. "What the hell. You don't care about him."

Chuck's hand fisted in the front of his uncle's shirt. "What world do you live in?" he hissed.

"Ask her," Jack prodded. "Ask her what we have. Ask her how many times I came on her since New Year's."

And there was the little boy again, the one Jack saw when he met with his brother the day Bart handed him the keys to his faraway kingdom. Jack had been incensed at the assignment. Australia. He was like a criminal in long ago Britain who was exiled to the harsh Outback. The boy had been a severely dressed young gentleman of eight when he overheard the offhand remark that Jack had made, "Where's the little prince who killed the queen?"

"His nanny's picking him up from school," Bart had answered.

And Jack had been too afraid of his brother to mention that the little boy was standing outside the door.

He had the same look now as he did then. And Jack curled his lips at the sight of Blair Waldorf's face when she saw it herself. He heard the sirens first. By some magic the police made it through the unmoving traffic. Blair retreated to the elevator. Chuck refused to meet her eyes. Jack felt the cold metal of the handcuffs snap around his wrists and watched as the police also pulled Chuck along with them.

They were pushed into the tiny cop cars. Again, Jack craned his neck to look up, because he knew, he would see her.

There she was, standing on the balcony of the Eaton House, with her arms wrapped around herself, watching the police car vanish into the night.

tbc

* * *

**Part 11**

When was the boy ever going to tire?

Jack meandered through the throng of people as crowding about the ferry station, jampacked as the docks were on that week of celebration. It had not taken long for the Bass lawyers to wrangle them out of jail, although it was slow work comparatively given how many people they needed to sign off had already gone on holiday. The effort had been so exhausting that when he heard his nephew propose to the lawyer to help him delay Jack's release, Jack had not been worried of the outcome. Anyone would push back on additional work on a Chinese New Year.

While finagling the release of two disruptive foreigners had been relatively easy, tracking down a lone foreign woman amidst the city was more difficult. But money talked. Jack understood the way of the world. Chuck had appeared repulsed at the thought of allowing Jack to help him out and did his own search by himself.

"Go back to Australia, Jack," his nephew told him, his voice soft, more threatening than if the words had been shouted at him. "Rot in hell."

And his eyes slitted. "I'll see you there," he answered easily.

"She's not yours." Not like every last good thing Jack ever wanted. This time was different. This time he was the one who won.

Chuck set his jaw. "I'll let her tell me that."

And even then they ended up walking the same streets, scouring the same markets, checking the same flights.

She was running because of Chuck. She was trying to get away from the boy.

And the spoiled little brat just could not take a hint. Jack kept a close eye on Chuck, standing several yards away, watching as he pored through flight schedules from a little leaflet and called the airport. Jack watched as Chuck's face grew red with impatience as he struggled to chop his English into distinct syllables, turn his sentences into barely there phrases. Causeway Bay was empty despite the hundreds of thousands who littered the streets.

She never booked a flight out of Hong Kong. Jack followed close as Chuck swung into the sky train and raced behind the boy towards the Tsim Sha Tsui ferry station. The boy had found her. It was apparent in the purposeful stride that carried Chuck to the dock. Jack broke into a run, stood on the elevated walkway in full view of the river.

He had been there before. The exact same dock, only now it was no longer unfamiliar. But the water was the same, restless and violent as the wind chopped the top and created crests of foam and white. He sucked in his breath, because this was the water that ate her all up and swallowed her.

"S'alright, man. River's just like that in January. Nothin' to be concerned about, mate."

Jack turned and glared at the suntanned backpacker who had reassured him. He despised it when lone travelers like him, easygoing folks who wore shorts and bore knapsacks twenty hours a day, thought it was fine to speak casually to him just because they seemed both out of place in the foreign land. He scowled, and the backpacker shrugged and strolled away.

Jack glared back at the murky water. They would ebb into the South China Sea. He had never seen anything so ugly as the perfect scenery in front of him.

It was just like the dream.

She wasn't going to let him save her. She was going to twist and fight and suck in the water until she drowned. And he was going to be left still looking up at her floating corpse.

Jack gripped the rail in front of him. The view was spectacular on the day he would watch her die.

There was a yell below him, and it unfolded like a low budget film. One man pointed towards the ferry that was right at the center, and Jack was in the best location to see the smoke curling like black snake against the vibrant cumulous sky. The flurry of activity onboard seemed harried and frenetic. He needed binoculars. It would be the first time he would watch firsthand how people were when they were fighting for survival.

His gaze snapped back to Chuck down below. The boy was every typical human being in the planet. For all his money, he never evolved. Chuck was one with the crowd who elbowed his way towards port authority, tried to fight his way into the crush that would not budge, cursing and spitting as he squeezed his way from one direction to the other.

Jack had such a higher regard for the boy, given the advantages he had had. But when it truly mattered, when he needed to shine, Chuck was a blubbering idiot who went with the flow.

Jack turned back to the fantastic scene that would be burned in his head forever, right alongside the image of Blair naked and letting herself get screwed by the clueless boy below. Yellow inflatable life rafts had been thrown overboard, and the ferry, clearly over capacity titled to the right at the opposite side of the licking flames.

It started on New Year's, and how appropriate that it would end on New Year's.

The boats were full; and even then he saw with crystal clarity how half of the passengers still remained in the rapidly sinking ferry. Even more, Jack saw splash after splash as toy people dove into the January river, into the violent undercurrents and freezing temperature.

His dream ended with him sinking into the bottomless river, but he was so far from the plank it would be impossible to dive in.

And the seconds rolled into minutes, the minutes into a quarter of an hour, and with every bright sunshine-colored lifeboat that they pulled in, with every boy and girl and woman they lifted up from the water, Jack felt a little of himself release, felt the coil unravel. He shook his head at the sight of his nephew struggling towards where the passengers sat trembling and cold and scared, trying to catch a glimpse then turn away.

The elated cries of the waiting people burst with every boat that arrived, and the sight and the sounds grew almost tiresome that Jack tuned them out.

Until one voice pierced through his brain.

"Chuck!"

His eyes snapped towards the very end of the pier, where she was huddled in a thick oversized blanket that she dropped onto the ground. Chuck stopped and turned towards the sound. And burst into a classless run.

She stood rooted to her spot. When the boy stopped in front of her, she threw her arms around him, grasping frantically at his back, almost clawing at the jacket the boy wore. "I thought I was gonna die," she gasped. She squeezed her eyes shut and laid her cheek on his shoulder, and Jack could see, in such close focus right below him, the look on her face.

It was not a face he would remember. It was a look he would forget as soon as he saw it.

Please. He needed to forget it.

Chuck picked up the discarded blanket and threw it over her shoulders, then wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her along with him.

"Wait," she said softly.

Jack straightened, then leaned over the rail.

"Where's Jack?"

And he just knew she would want to know. She would need to figure out how to get to him.

"In hell," Chuck growled.

She reached up a hand, cupped his cheek. For the briefest of moments, Jack could see the way her thumb moved in a gentle rolling circle on his cheekbone. And then she drew her hand away. Chuck followed for a brief moment until the contact was lost. "I'm sorry. I can't be with you, not after what I did."

That was right. She had to be with him, not a pathetic high school child who was half the man he was.

"I'm so ashamed," she finished.

The lying little whore, pretending she didn't enjoy it the way she obviously did.

The boy grabbed the hand that she had retracted, raised her palm to his lips so he could press a kiss on her skin. "He doesn't exist anymore. Blair, I lo—"

The wind and the river and the people below him, their noises were thunder. They drowned out the words the boy shared. Chuck said more, but Jack heard nothing. It was virtual monologue, and she listened with rapt attention, but Jack couldn't even see her face. The sun was too bright, and the water reflect too much of it he was blinded.

If it wasn't for the world around him, he told himself, he would have paid closer attention.

But it was the wind and the river and all the insensitive people bawling and screaming and the siren all around them. And it was the sun and the water and he was just completely deaf and blind.

Jack pressed his knuckles against his tightly closed eyes. She had fucking drowned, her sightless eyes the very focal point of his memory's eye. Jack sucked in a large breath, and another, and another. But like his dream he was sinking into the very bottom, and there was no air down there, nothing to see, nothing to hear but the pulsing blood in his ears.

He couldn't breathe without choking.

There was nothing for them, nothing but lies and misery. Chuck never deserved her. She would never turn the boy into a man.

Whatever this was going to be, he wished they crashed and burned.

fin


End file.
